michele bachmann

There are so many things wrong with this picture. Let’s see if we can find them all.

First of all, Mitt Romney won the pointless Iowa Caucus by 8 votes out of 122,255 total votes. He spent 17 jillion dollars there trying to make Newt Gingrich look bad. That worked. But then a guy who spent nothing almost beat him. Considering what advantages Romney had over Rick Santorum, Santorum kind of did beat him. Mitt’s been the frontrunner for years now, so winning by 8 votes means that everyone pretty much still hates him.

And he (almost) got beat by someone whose name has come to be defined as something I don’t even want to write…so just Google it. It’s more fun than me ruining the surprise for you, and it’ll keep it in the top search spot.

Then we’ve got Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, and Herman Cain all finishing with less total votes combined than Ron Paul alone which is strange since god told them all to run for president. Then again, if god can’t make up his mind and he totally lacks the follow through to help any of them win, what does his endorsement really mean anyway? Besides, he told George W. Bush to invade Iraq, so maybe politics isn’t god’s thing. It’s almost like it would be a good idea to keep those things separate…

Somewhat unsurprisingly, 58 Iowans actually didn’t realize that Herman Cain left his sexual harassment 9-9-9 campaign of bullshit in the past a few weeks ago.

Jon Huntsman, the only candidate who openly admits to acknowledging the realities of climate change and evolution got 745 total votes. Literally, the only candidate with enough intelligence and integrity to essentially say that 2+2=4 gets treated like a total non-factor. There’s so much wrong with that.

But none of that is as wrong and funny as this…

135 people showed up to caucus for “no preference”.

Caucus attendees left their houses for a non-binding vote where they had to mill around for a while and then write a name down on a piece of blank paper…and 135 Iowans spent a few hours of their day doing this to write “no preference” on a card.

I’m loathe to write twice in a row about the same person, especially when that person is Michele Bachmann, but her performance on Meet the Press yesterday merits some comment and consideration. In short, it was an absolute abomination – one that is sure to please her followers and enhance her position as the Tea Party princess.

Between skirting her former judgments on how debased and deplorable homosexuals are and redefining the word “submissive” to somehow be synonymous to “respect”, she made an argument that more and more people are making these days, to the detriment of the country as a whole.

At one point, David Gregory addressed Bachmann’s hardline stance to oppose any raise of the debt ceiling, even though every expert said it was a reckless position to take. Her response was as follows:

The people of this country would love to weigh in, and they would love to say, “Tim Geithner, Treasury secretary, you’re wrong. Mr. President, you’re wrong”…. all the people in Washington said we had to raise the debt ceiling, all the people out in America said don’t raise the debt ceiling…. representatives are supposed to represent the people that they serve. The people that they’re serving are saying, “You guys don’t have it figured out. Stop spending money you don’t have.

Gregory actually did a surprisingly reasonable job of following up on these statements, asking repeatedly if public opinion should be the determining decision making factor in a representative democracy, noting that the whole reason to have representatives making the decisions is because we don’t just use public opinion.

People have been in an uproar all week about the latest Newsweek cover featuring Michele Bachmann – everyone from conservatives who are worried that their candidate is being seen in a bad light to women’s group who believe the use of the picture is sexist.

On all sides, people are claiming that Newsweek is biased because, they say, the picture makes Bachmann look insane. I agree with half of that. The picture does make her look insane. Actually, Michele Bachmann makes Michele Bachmann look insane. The picture just reflects the reality of her total batshit-ness. It’s not like this is something new (recall her ridiculous Tea Party “response” to the State of the Union).

But I don’t think that means Newsweek is biased, unless being biased about having insane/stupid people trying to run our struggling country is now a bad thing. It used to be the media’s job to show us reality and teach us about the world. Now they basically just have to make both sides seem equal and be nice to everyone. Bias would be not making it clear that Bachmann is completely unqualified and mentally unable to be the leader of the free world. It would be bias to pretend that she’s on the same level as Barack Obama – but this isn’t a left/right thing: she’s also not on the same level as Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, John Huntsman, or Ron Paul and I don’t want to see any of them leading the country.

It’s important to note that many of the people on the right who are raving mad about this picture had no problem with the “Obama in Muslim garb” or the claims that Obama “palled around with terrorists” and was anti-American.

If this cover makes people think that Bachmann is nuts, good. If it damages her chances of actually being president of the United States (not that there really is a chance), even better.

If you think that the founding fathers tried to end slavery, that evolution is an evil liberal myth, and that gay marriage is the greatest threat to our nation in the last three decades, you’re not an actual sane, thinking person. If you think your husband can turn gay people straight, you’re a fucking moron. If you publicly decry taxes and government spending while simultaneously begging for government money, you’re either not smart or have no integrity.

So where’s the bias in nudging along the narrative that a crazy/ignorant person is crazy/ignorant and unfit to be president? That is the real story and the real truth.

And showing that used to be the media’s job, no matter who it helped or hurt.